Inspiration
As students who have to handle the complexity of a college schedule, there is no simple and easy way to view your progress and your remaining courses. That’s why we created GradChek, an organizational tool that provides the user with a list of classes they still need to take, including pre-requisites and co-requisites based on their completed courses.
What it does
GradChek first takes all of a student’s finished classes and class-equivalent credits. It then aesthetically tracks student’s progress and is intended to serve as an encouraging tool as it shows the student how far they’ve come by showing the percentage of the overall credits they have versus how much they still need. It then gives the student a list of courses that they still need to complete, starting with the most urgently needed courses.
How we built it
At first, we attempted to develop it as a website using Node.js. Eventually, though, we found it difficult to work with since no one on the team had a good understanding of how to use it, so we changed tactics. Tasks were split amongst the group: Casey and Evan worked on setting up the wireframe, Matthew created a json file for courses, and Kevin wrote the code using Swift in Xcode. Going behind the structure of the code, it contains a function that reads data from a json file and converts it into a Struct array, which is used for displaying the courses. The first page is built by using VStack to display the content in vertical order and uses a wheel spinner for users to choose their major.
Challenges we ran into
We had a difficult time figuring out the world problem to solve, since there are a lot of apps that have been created. We are first-time hackers and needed to research Swift. As a result, we had to carry out a lot of research for the first page of the app, resulting in less time for the intensive sections. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we initially attempted to implement the idea as a website. Unfortunately we found it too difficult to work with to be worthwhile, forcing us to change our approach.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are happy with the build we made for the app. Additionally the wireframe made in Marvel turned out to be very aesthetically pleasing.
What we learned
We learned how to use Xcode and how convenient it is for mobile developers. We also learned how to use Marvel, a planning and organizational tool which we used for the wireframe.
Additionally, we sharpened our ability to work in a team environment. We improved in many areas including time management, organization, and delegation of tasks
What's next for GradChek
We hope to expand GradChek to encompass more schools, majors, minors, and general education requirements so that students will get a more complete picture of their progress when they use it. Since the data is huge when we have more majors, we plan to store the data to the cloud and pull it back whenever the app is launched. Furthermore, we wanted to create a “what-if” scenario for students who want to change their major to see what progress they have made toward any given major with their current credits.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.